David Harsanyi, Denver Post: As the economic news — fairly or not — has provided Barack Obama the momentum this past month, John McCain has decided to bring the Illinois senator’s shady associations to the forefront. This promises to be spectacularly “negative” — and even somewhat true. But will it matter? Former President Bill Clinton was recently asked by Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren: “What is the difference between an

The anti-feminist feminist harpy. From Salon: As I see it, the Palin Effect is a double-headed hydra. On one side you have Todd Palin, who is clearly a vibrant, macho force in his family’s life. Just as clearly, he has effectively embraced the role as a primary caregiver. What does it say that he and Sarah have a mutually aggrandizing partnership/marriage? A successful professional woman who embraces a masculine male

If anybody needs me, I’ll be curled up in bed. Incidentally, any of you feel like donating a decent hand gun? I’d offer to buy it outright, but unfortunately I’m putting all my money into canned soups and beans just now — and so the only protection I can offer my family is my ability to kill most people with my bare hands. But that’s always contingent on their number

Me, I plan on using tonight’s debate as a drinking game: every time it occurs to me that PJM is paying someone other than me big bucks to liveblog this bitch, I’m going to do a shot of Ouzo and spank myself with any rolled up Victor Davis Hanson column I can dig up that mentions either Xerxes, Thrace, or Herodotus. So. Let the games begin! **** post mortem: Ed

…from Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, courtesy the LA Times blog: “We’re prepared for a very aggressive debate,” Axelrod told reporters aboard Obama’s plane today en route to Nashville from North Carolina. Should the need arise, Axelrod said, taking off one glove as a preemptory warning himself, Obama will remind Americans during the debate here at Belmont University of the Arizona senator’s role in the “Keating 5” thrift scandal

Remember when Robert Gibb said earlier that Senator Obama didn’t know of Bill Ayers’ violent past? Well, that’s not entirely true, as it turns out. This, according to Mr Gibb. Who strenuously disagrees with Mr Gibb for taking Mr Gibb out of context and putting words into the mouth of Mr Gibb. Besides — what about the big issues? AND, you know — KEATING!

1. Can’t sleep 2. Pain is unbearable 3. Need to be able to throw inside left body shots and lead left hook if I’m to ever defeat my heavybag in a sanctioned bout 4. Can’t really raise my left arm above my head just now 5. — Which, how can I offer an Obama salute, should the dude win the election? 6. I mean, hell, I don’t want to get

From Kay B Day, who described herself in the comments to an earlier post as a “former effective community organizer who never took a dime in government money”: Sen. Barack Obama often contrasts the billions in reserve in Iraqi revenues with what the war costs the U.S. But not a single reporter has asked the senator about a key economic decision on Iraq by some of Obama’s staunchest supporters, a

Because getting to the source of the problem would be, like, messy — whereas pinning the whole crisis on fatcat CEOs and “greedy businesses” is a tried and true populist dodge. From The Hill: Congressional Democrats and Republicans traded accusations Monday over what and whom to blame for the financial crisis amid startling new revelations surrounding the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment bank. Democrats aimed their harshest attacks at

Ironically, CNN notes that critics of the McCain campaign’s late attempts to tie Obama to Ayers are suggesting that McCain is trying to shift the focus away from economic issues — which would come as a surprise to the McCain campaign, though not to the LA Times. From Patterico, we learn that the LA Times cut off its reporting of McCain’s speech yesterday (which I linked here) just at the